War

Big Questions

Should autonomous drones make the kill decision without a human in the loop?

Should we ban autonomous nuclear weapons?
De need a new international accord to control drone proliferation?

Should the President of the United States have unilateral authority to order a nuclear attack?

How can we prevent the global nuclear triumvirate (U.S. – Russia – China) currently in-check by Mutually-Assured Destruction (MAD), from escalating into open military conflict?
Is adopting a no-first-use policy among nuclear-armed states a good starting point towards ultimately achieving a safer and saner nuclear-weapons-free world?

Peril by Bob Woodward

How many nuclear warheads exist in the world?

wake-up call: False Alarm
What’s our long-term plan to reduce this number to zero?
In the meantime, what is the probability of nuclear war?

The **number of nuclear warheads** has dropped significantly, but more countries now
possess them.

Does human nature doom us to fight one another?

When did war first start?
Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities?
Why are warriors almost always men?
Is war ever within our control?

Has the disruption of the military by COVID-19 pushed the military towards more autonomous force projection across all of its strategic platforms?

Are machines now more reliable then humans?
Will Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based hyperwar’s super-speed obsolete human intervention and control?
Will we need ai to defend against ai? Is that like an ai-dog chasing its ai-tail?

If AI can produce human-equivalent writing-on-demand, does the pen become mightier than the sword in terms of its propaganda potential and impact on people and countries?

Should we consider Russia’s and China’s cyber-meddling in our affairs an act of war?
How will we fight state-sponsored disinformation and propaganda going forward?

Are these our **cyber warriors** of the future? Should we really be encouraging kids down this path?

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Why is War Never-Ending?

War is never-ending because it is the primary engine that builds wealth and power for the military-industrial complex’s WAR PROFITEERS. Up to half of the estimated $14 trillion that the Pentagon has spent in the two decades since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan has gone to corporate defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics and others that spend heavily to lobby politicians to keep war from ending. It’s the business model for WAR PROFITEERS. When one war “ends,” another begins because millions of shareholders depend on it.

Why is war never-ending?

Follow the money and you’ll get your answer.

The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine by Andrew Cockburn
Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network by Ari Ben-Menashe